


Something Wanting

by ashe_urbanipal



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, Friendship, Gen, Growing Old, Growing Up, Ice Skating, M/M, Parenthood, Pining, Russian diminutives are hard, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Surrogacy, ish?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14246457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashe_urbanipal/pseuds/ashe_urbanipal
Summary: "She seemed taken aback for just a moment, then nodded with resolve before sliding off down the rink again. Spartan advice, but hopefully effective. It had been ten years and seven gold medals since his debut, but he barely felt qualified to pass out any sage wisdom on the matter. And yet Victor always sent the junior skaters to him, hoping they'd glean something useful they couldn't get from their own coach."The Ice Tiger of Russia has cut a swathe through the skating world a mile wide in the decade since his senior debut. The ice has been good to him, but there are still things it can't bring him. Balance. Clarity. Companionship.Despite being enveloped in a small family he can call his, there's something missing. Something he can't scratch. When an old flame appears, the feelings boil over, and he can't hold onto his life as is, anymore.





	Something Wanting

"Mr. Plisetsky!" a little knot formed in the bottom of Yuri's stomach every time someone called his name like that, but he tried his best not to let it show.

 _You're a role model now, Yuratchka. The young ones look up to you_. He could almost hear the old man in his head. Was that voice Yakov or Victor, though? It didn't matter. They had both chastised him about equal at this point. Yuri turned to the pale, freckled brunette girl who had slid along the rink to meet him.

"Mr. Plisetsky, I'm competing in my first senior division next week, and Coach Nikiforov-"

"And Nikiforov sent you over to force a pep talk out of me?" She blushed a little and turned her eyes toward her skates.

"I...Coach reminded me that you won gold your first time at the Grand Prix, and I just wanted to know if you had any tips."

"Are you expecting to 1.) qualify all the rounds to make it that far, and 2.) even stand on the podium?

"Ah...no...I just…"

"Well you should! You should always expect that of yourself. Eyes on the prize every time. Nothing short of gold should ever be truly good enough."

She seemed taken aback for just a moment, then nodded with resolve before gliding off down the rink again. Spartan advice, but hopefully effective. It had been ten years and seven gold medals since his debut, but he barely felt qualified to pass out any sage wisdom on the matter. And yet Victor always sent the junior skaters to him, hoping they'd glean something useful they couldn't get from their own coach.

"There's uncle Yurio," said another voice, thick with accent. Another name he shied away from, but at least the person who spoke it had grown on him. It hadn't been easy learning to share Victor. He'd been petulant, childish, unable to understand why he couldn't seem to get ahold of one of the few things he ever really and truly wanted. His anger and intransigence almost ruined him.

He'd had a moment of crystal clarity, though, when they all stood together on the podium a couple years later. Pork cutlet bowl wasn't going away. Not yet, at least. By the time he joined them at the altar as a groomsman, he'd come to think of Yuuri as...not a brother...but something between friend and family. Someone he'd feel the absence of in his life. Not that he'd ever admit to any of that in hundred years.

Of course, the best thing Yuuri ever did was provide the means of creating the singular best creature in all of existence. A black haired, gray-eyed three year old clung to his leg, her tiny little arms lifted to him.

"Valya!" Yuri picked up the girl and gave her a squeeze, nuzzling his nose into her tiny little cheek. "And when are you going to win your first gold, huh?"

"I just start skating!" she squealed.

"That is not an excuse, my little piglet. They have five and under competitions."

"Yes, they do, but we're not going to force Valentina to compete, you know that." Yuuri reached them at the edge of the stands. His round form dropped to the bleachers, pink and purple Hello Kitty backpack flopping down between his feet. Valentina had picked it out. He wasn't fat by any means, but the triple hit of retiring, hitting his mid-thirties, and becoming a dad didn't exactly lend itself well to keeping in triple flip condition.

"Valenka! My zolotska," cooed a silver-haired old coot, his skates slicing through the ice. "Come to papa!" Yuri held out the little girl to Victor who clamored over the railing to get to him. He planted a bevy of quick kisses all over her forehead and cheeks, chattering little endearments into her ears. "Here, go back to otousan, papa's gotta take off his skates." Victor deposited her back on the bleacher side, but she ran to Yuri instead of her own father, begging to be picked up again. He obliged as Victor came through the opening in the wall to sit down next to his husband. Victor leaned over for a kiss, and Yuri was quick to shy away. Seeing them affectionate with each other didn't gross him out like it used to, but the disgust had been replaced with a strange dull ache in his chest.

As he gazed out over the rink, he gave a hard glare to a handful of lingering teenagers, mostly girls, waiting to hopefully catch a glimpse of the legendary pair together in the flesh. They knew not to make a scene of themselves in front of their various coaches, though, and they were finally slipping off to the locker room to change.

"Is beef and cabbage okay for dinner?" It took Yuri a moment to realize he was being spoken to, too busy focusing on the retreating forms of the young skaters.

"What was that?"

Yuuri was looking up at him expectantly.

"I'm making beef cabbage rolls for dinner. Was in the mood for something from home. You're coming over, right? It's Thursday."

Right. Thursday. The weekly meal at the Nikiforov-Katsuki's. Those had started when Grandpa died and Yuri was officially all on his own. _Come over when we're not traveling, one night a week, at least, for a good meal. You can't live on protein bars and instant soup._ Yuri had learned how to cook properly for one in the meantime, but the tradition had held.

"Uh, sure, I like both those things," Yuri replied, taking a moment to play with the aglets of Valentina's cheetah print sneakers (a gift from his own hands).

"I dun like cabbage," she opined.

"Val-chan, you do like cabbage. We just had it last week," Yuuri responded in The Voice.

"But I dun like cabbage, now," Valentina insisted.

"Valentina, we eat the food that's cooked for us," Victor added in his version of The Voice. The little girl tucked her forehead into Yuri's neck in defiance. It was still strange to hear them speak with those tones of firm but gentle command. They weren't just fathers, they were Dads and it was still taking some getting used to.

 

* * *

 

"Kyabetsu! Kyabetsu!" Valentina had turned around to the idea of cabbage for dinner, and decided to invent a new song for the occasion. She demanded that Yuri march around the living room as part of her vegetable procession, but he'd tuckered out about half-way through.

Now he was sat on the couch, watching her babble in and out between Russian, English, and bits of Japanese. He had half a mind to record it. At the thought of it he was already doing it, tagging both her dads on Instagram. He didn't remember who came up with #borschtcutletbowl (probably Chulanont or his fiancé), but they all used it liberally, now.

Victor joined him on the couch, glass of red wine nestled between two long, pale fingers.

"You want a glass? We've also got half a bottle of vodka left in the freezer."

"I might, in a minute." Yuri leaned back into the burgundy leather sofa and caught a flash of their reflection together in the black of the TV. When Victor turned it on, it disappeared, but the image remained. Ingrained. Burned into the back of his eyes.

Victor had always been stunning. Everyone knew that. But he'd aged into something so fine and elegant it should have been illegal for him to simply exist in the world with other, normal people. Yuri had gained maybe ten centimeters at most coming into adulthood. Either he was destined to be short or all the years of ballet and salchows during his formative years really had stunted his growth. He'd put muscle on that small frame, though, despite attempting to stay trim and waifish for as long as possible. He'd only managed to maintain the "Russian fairy" aesthetic for a little while into his late teens before flowering into "attainable Adonis." The past couple of seasons he'd been working up to "your daughter calls me 'daddy,' too." It was orchestrated to hit its stride this year, and he had to admit a certain level of excitement. The end of his competitive career was creeping up on him, and if he could go out with a bang that'd be ideal.

"You should consider coaching," Victor said, in the middle of a thread of thought.

"Why the f-," Yuri caught himself. No cussing in front of the baby. "Why would I want to do that?"

"You're a multi-medalist, you can competently teach a step sequence, and you're great with the kids."

"Only two of those three things are correct."

"Valentina loves you!" Victor gestured to his daughter who'd now changed her chant to "Niku! Gyuuniku!"

"That's different," Yuri protested.

"The kids at the rink-"

"The kids at the rink are somewhere between desperate and starstruck, hoping to catch even a glimmer of fame or talent by association. They aren't even half the skater you were at that age..or a quarter of the skater I was." Yuri lifted the edge of his eyebrow smugly, but Victor pushed on, ignoring the jab.

"Well. I enjoy it. You're going to have to watch out for my Konstantin, this year. He's coming for your blood."

"So does he want the left or right side of the podium?"

Victor snorted ever so slightly into his wine.

"Don't be so quick to drop your guard," Yuuri called from the kitchen. "You've got some stiff competition coming up to meet you in the next few seasons."

"If I make it that much longer _,"_ Yuri added internally.

Valentina jumped up onto the couch, changing the course of the conversation toward when dinner would be ready and if there would be pudding for desert afterward.

"If you eat all your bites." Yuuri appeared, an apron rolled down to his waist, matching glass of wine in his own hand. Looking so domestic, it was easy to forget his post skating career was more lucrative than anyone they knew. A business degree had, indeed been an excellent fallback plan. Yuri only hoped his own post-secondary education would be so useful when the time came.

 

* * *

 

The Eastern European Cup was relatively new, only a handful of years old, but it was a good way to start the season. One of Victor's students was also competing, but the trip down to Moscow was easy enough it meant the whole family was tagging along.

The only downside to it being in-country was that he couldn't dodge the reporters with a feigned ignorance of their language.

When the microphones and sports journalists came at him on his way into the stadium, he steeled his body and mind for the onslaught. It was Valentina who came to the rescue. Her calls for "Dyadya Yuri" to pick her up destroyed the news teams with a level of cuteness none of them were physically prepared to deal with.

Within an hour, #daddyPlisetsky had overtaken all ice skating related newsfeeds. Yuri knew this because he kept getting tagged in all of them. He had to turn the notifications off on his phone just to concentrate on getting ready for his skate.

He was early, which was nice. He liked showing everyone the thing they were going to have to beat, put the fear of God into them, rustle their jimmies. He was also happy to note that his attempt at producing hyper-masculinity on the ice was effective. Checking his phone after his short program revealed that #daddyPlisetsky had quickly taken a more explicit turn.

"How'd they get so many pictures of your butt so quickly?"

Yuri jumped a little. He hadn't heard the other Yuuri join him at the top of the risers.

"Perverts screencapping the livestream." Yuri tucked his phone into his pocket. "Where's lil' bit?"

"She's down on the floor getting ready to 'help papa with coaching.' If she gets in the way, there're a couple of volunteers down there ready to watch her. I'm not worried."

"Hm…" Without thinking, Yuri pulled out his phone again, expecting his feed to be totally new, somehow, in the two seconds since he last looked at it. That was the worst part of competition. The long amounts of waiting between competitors, programs, and divisions. Yuri let out a soft groan.

"What's up?" Yuuri tapped Yuri with his shoe where they had both propped them up on the backs of the seats in front of them.

"Skate Canada is this weekend, also, and that asshole Leroy is there posting pictures and being gross."

"For someone you still call 'that asshole' after all these years, why do you still follow him?"

"I need to know what the competition is up to."

"He stopped competing two years ago."

"Not just in skating. In life-oh lord. Look at her; she's ready to pop. Why does he reproduce so much?" Yuri quickly flashed the picture of a very pregnant Mrs. Leroy to the other Yuuri who raised his eyebrows, impressed.

"Is that number two or three?" he asked.

"Four."

"Damn. Okay. That's too many. To each his own, but that's too many children in too short a time. I can't even...wooo." Yuri let out a big puff of air, perhaps imagining that many little versions of himself wandering around, clutching at his ankles.

"Everyone's getting married or having babies, right now. It's a little disgusting. "

"It's what people do. Welcome to your mid-twenties."

"I need it to be over. Also people being thirsty on these ass-shots. That needs to end, too. The sooner the better."

"You should've read the things posted on our wedding photos. It could be a whole lot worse."

"Oh, I did…I did. I even posted a few." For a moment, Yuuri went beat red, then sunk back into his seat.

"We're talking about when to look into number 2," he offered after a bit of silence.

"Another little piglet? I love Valentina, but two of you is enough."

"For the second one Victor would be the...uh…"

"Sperm donor?"

"I was going to use a more elegant phrase, but yeah. That's the idea."'

"The only thing worse than an extra piglet running around is a tinier, louder version of that creature."

The creature in question had started hauling up the stairs, Valentina in tow, pulling on the bottom edges of his sharp gray suit. A look of frustration stretched across his face, forming his heart-shaped mouth into weird contortions.

"There was some kind of error, and they've delayed the women's skate by twenty minutes. Irina's getting psyched out." Victor flopped down on Yuri's other side and sent Valentina off to his husband for a bit.

"She's tough. She'll be fine," Yuri mused, patting Valentina on the head as she passed in front of his knees. "Who all's competing? I didn't even look up the women's skate."

"Ahhhh, here." Victor pulled a slightly crumpled piece of paper out of his breast pocket and handed it over.

Yuri scanned the list, looking for names he knew. One, in particular, stopped him.

"There's a competitor from Kazakstan in the junior division. Guess who choreographed his short routine."

Both Victor and Yuuri leaned forward in their seats instantly, waiting to hear the fallout from this revelation. When he didn't say anything, the other Yuuri breathed in a sharp uptick of air.  

"How long has it been since you talked to him?" he asked quickly.

"It's not weird, is it?" Victor chimed in.

"I...is this what old married couples do? Live vicariously through their hot, single friends?"

"Yes," they answer simultaneously. He tsked at them.

"It's not...weird...alright? It's never been weird. We just don't see each other in person all that often, and the few times we do, we're too busy to catch up. And since he decided to drop out for a few seasons, he hasn't had a reason to come abroad. So...whatever. Leave it alone."

Yuri went back to his phone, not really looking at the screen, but trying to keep from looking at the idiots on either side of him. Then he saw it. It was an accident really, he hadn't even gone to Instagram stalk him, yet, which is absolutely the thing that was about to happen.

A picture of him in front of the Eastern European Cup welcome banner with a couple of young skaters.

He was here. He was here somewhere.

Another picture taken literally seconds ago from the bottom of the auditorium near the judges table.

Yuri was on his feet before his brain even knew what he was doing. The mere flutter of the idea that he might get to actually see him in person had sparked jet fuel in his belly, rocketing him down the stairs toward the rink. Around the bend, toward the kiss and cry. Just beyond that to the judges. Here. He was around here somewhere.

Then Yuri saw him. Tall. Dark. Black hair with eyes the color of charcoal. The haircut had barely even changed in all these years.

Yuri called out to him, and the man heard, turning quickly to find Yuri in the crowd. Their eyes locked with each other and the world faded away around them.

How long had it been since he'd seen him in the flesh? So long. Too long.

But here he was.

Otabek Altin.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You know "write what you want to read?" That's how this started, something to idle my time while I waited I re imaged a hard drive. I spent a not insignificant amount of time digging into Russian diminutives and pet names, so I hope I got them right.
> 
> Also, I used the Yuuri/Yuri name dichotomy for ease of reading.


End file.
